Comments on: What’s happening to the Soviet republican giants?http://backpagefootball.com/whats-happening-to-the-soviet-republican-giants/52415/
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Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:48:41 +0000http://backpagefootball.com/?p=52415#comment-370167[…] Featured, Reports and Tags: Soviet Union . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 […]
]]>By: Luke Ginnellhttp://backpagefootball.com/whats-happening-to-the-soviet-republican-giants/52415/#comment-370094
Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:16:26 +0000http://backpagefootball.com/?p=52415#comment-370094Hi Gerry. Taking the case of Berlin, in the aftermath of the wall’s fall, there was only ever going to be one major club in that city – Hertha. Dynamo were hated by most of the people in Berlin, and due to their strong links with the Stasi (East German secret police), they were hardly likely to ever win new fans. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the story of Dynamo Berlin/Dresden; essentially, due to a desire on the part of the East German authorities to have a dominant, winning team in the capital, they stole all of Dynamo Dresden’s players (Dynamo Dresden – as the name suggests – were also a secret police club) and moved them to Berlin, hence forming the nucleus of the newly-successful Dynamo Berlin. Now, D.Berlin are in the 5th tier, whilst Dresden are in the 2nd, after years of obscurity.

The problem for East German teams was basically the same as experienced by the clubs in the article above – that is, when they were no longer recipients of state-sponsorship or backing, they were unable to compete, particularly since teams like Bayern, etc., could blow them out of the water financially. They also struggled from a lack of fans, with many East Germans preferring to support the more popular, established Bundesliga teams.

]]>By: Gerry Farrellhttp://backpagefootball.com/whats-happening-to-the-soviet-republican-giants/52415/#comment-369649
Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:20:45 +0000http://backpagefootball.com/?p=52415#comment-369649Really sad to see the dearth of Eastern teams in the German top flight. A city the size of Berlin without a club in the top league. Same with Dresden & Leipzip.